I recently realized a trend that has been pretty useful for us – it seems that most bread has roughly half the number of carbs as there are grams in weight. So if the slice of bread weighs 50 grams, I bolus for 25 grams of carbs. Seems to work pretty well.
anyone have any other rules of thumb they find useful when estimating food?
@TiaG You may find this document from the Montreal Children’s Hospital helpful. It outlines the carb factors for a lot of foods. All carbs are a factor of a food’s weight, so as long as you have a scale handy, you can calculate the carbs based on the associated carb factor.
I grew up using the “exchange lists” so I have a ton of them embedded in my memory. I’m sure you can find the old exchange lists if you google. They are surprisingly useful information to have at your disposal without needing to refer to a reference. When I buy fruit at the market I choose the ones to buy based on the size. Some of the rules-of-thumb I still use all the time - Piece of “normal” bread 15 g carb (not the artisinal stuff which is more). Cup of rice = cup of pasta = three pieces of bread (45g carb). Small orange or peach = 10g carb. Small apple = 15g carb. small banana = 20g carb. Dozen raisins = 4g carb.
i grew up using these exchange lists too. also, i learned to use my hand to represent portion sizes. open hand, piece of bread; fist, potato, apple, etc. but, like you, i have so much committed to memory, that i dont bother reading a lot of lables, and i have never once weighed anything. my last A1c was 4.9% so i must be doing something right for a T1 